A Review of Spatial Network Insights and Methods in the Context of Planning: Applications, Challenges, and Opportunities

TL;DR

This paper reviews spatial network analysis in urban planning, highlighting theories, applications, challenges, and future integration opportunities for planners amid the rise of geospatial big data.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive synthesis of spatial network insights and methods relevant to urban planning, addressing current challenges and proposing future collaborative frameworks.

Findings

Identified key applications in urban infrastructure and social analysis.

Outlined major challenges including data privacy and visualization issues.

Proposed integration of spatial networks into collaborative planning processes.

Abstract

With the rise of geospatial big data, new narratives of cities based on spatial networks and flows have replaced the traditional focus on locations. While plenty of research have empirically analyzed network structures, there lacks a state-of-the-art synthesis of applicable insights and methods of spatial networks in the planning context. In this chapter, we reviewed the theories, concepts, methods, and applications of spatial network analysis in cities and their insights for planners from four areas of concern: spatial structures, urban infrastructure optimizations, indications of economic wealth, social capital, and residential mobility, and public health control (especially COVID-19). We also outlined four challenges that planners face when taking the planning knowledge from spatial networks to actions: data openness and privacy, linkage to direct policy implications, lack of civic engagement, and the difficulty to visualize and integrate with GIS. Finally, we envisioned how spatial networks can be integrated into a collaborative planning framework.